Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Prosciutto

This recipe is especially for my dear friend, Belinda, who apparently has a surplus of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in her freezer.   It is one of my favorites from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, published in the US as Food Revolution, where, for some bizarre reason, the Parmesan was omitted from the recipe.  I can’t imagine why.

Ingredients

2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme

30g or 1 oz Parmesan cheese

2 skinless chicken breasts

Freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon

4-5 slices of prosciutto or Parma ham – about 70g or 2.5 oz

Olive oil

Method

Pick the thyme leaves off the stalks.   If there are some very fine stalks which just break when you try to remove the leaves, just chop those up and group with the leaves. Grate your Parmesan.

Lay some cling film on a cutting board and place the breasts on the plastic.  Carefully score the underside of the chicken breasts in a criss-cross fashion with a small knife.

Season with a little pepper (You don’t need salt as the prosciutto and Parmesan are quite salty).  Lay your breasts next to each other and sprinkle over most of the thyme leaves.

Grate a little lemon zest over them.

Put half of the Parmesan on each breast.

Lay two prosciutto slices on each chicken breast, overlapping them slightly. If there happens to be a fifth slice in your package, as mine had, cut it in half and put one piece on each breast on top of the other two slices.

Put a square of plastic wrap over each breast and give them a few really good bashes with the bottom of a saucepan until they are about ½ inch or 1cm thick.

This  is the fun part!  Give it a jolly good bash. 

Put a frying pan over a medium heat. Remove the plastic wrap and carefully transfer the chicken breasts, prosciutto-side down, into the pan.

Drizzle over some olive oil. Cook for three minutes on each side, turning halfway through.

Either serve the chicken breasts whole or cut them into thick slices and pile them on a plate.   Serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over and a sprinkle of the few leftover thyme leaves. 

Enjoy!